Above the giant stretched nine radiant layers of light, each blazing with its own brilliance.
Nine suns…?
Or nine heavens?
The thought struck him instinctively. From the void, they were hazy, indistinct. But if someone stood on any continent below, those nine layers would shine like nine suns dominating the sky.
What is the meaning of this…?
The thought rose quietly, yet it rippled through his mind with surprising weight.
What is this place?
Above him, those nine layers of light flickered like distant suns veiled by mist. Their radiance pressed faintly against his consciousness, as if his mortal senses were not meant to grasp their shape.
Could this be… the world the Eye originated from?
The idea came too smoothly for his liking, as if something within him had nudged it forward.
Or…
Atem felt a sharp pulse run through his head, the beginnings of a dangerous guess forming.
No. This won't do. Jumping to conclusions is the fastest way to misjudge a situation.
He steadied himself, letting his thoughts settle one by one.
Let's go over what I know.
First: the Eye fused with me while I was unconscious.
Whether that was its intention from the beginning or merely chance, he could not say.
But one thing was certain—it hadn't asked him.
Second: I was reborn with my memories intact.
This alone was not something ordinary methods could achieve.
Was it the Eye that carried them over? Or the ancient pendant ?
There was no answer. Only possibilities stacked on uncertainty.
Third: where exactly have I ended up?
The village, the mannerisms, even the air… all strangely familiar.
But under the surface, everything was different, whatever this world was, it was certainly not Earth he knew and it was not the past either.
If the eye had followed him across worlds…
If the pendant had preserved his mind at the moment of death…and if those nine shining layers were truly the heavens of this realm…
Then his situation was far more complicated than he had expected.
For now, however…
----
Atem woke again. This time the feeling was calmer, easier. When he opened his eyes and looked around, surprise flickered across his face.
The ceiling above him wasn't the one he had gotten used to over the past few days.
For a moment he simply lay there, listening to the soft creak of the shutters and the distant rumble of wind moving between cliffs.
He was not alarmed. After all the things that had happened since the day he died in another world, waking up in a different house barely registered as a concern.
It seemed Lira and Marek had finally moved into the new home the temple provided.
Judging by the coldness in the air, they were much closer to the mountain's higher paths. A few voices drifted faintly through the wall—neighbors greeting each other, the clatter of someone carrying buckets of water, the call of a merchant cart passing along the temple road.
So this was Pearlroot Temple's residential quarter.
After adjusting to the idea, Atem closed his eyes briefly. It did not bother him. Whether he slept under one roof or another mattered little. What truly concerned him lay beyond simple roofs and rooms.
But that was a thought for later.
Pearlroot Temple was not large, but it was busy in a steady way. The mountain paths brought in hunters, merchants, traveling experts, and the occasional wandering alchemist seeking winter herbs. With so many people passing through, Lira's skills as a physician quickly became indispensable.
Every morning, before the sun had fully cleared the eastern ridge, she slid open the clinic door and lit the incense pot on her table. By the time the temple bell rang for morning meditation, there were always several people waiting outside—villagers in thick coats, junior disciples with injured meridians, elderly hunters and fishermen.
Marek's forge was only a short walk behind the clinic. The moment the morning frost melted enough for the stones to warm, he was already at work. The rhythmic ringing of his hammer could be heard throughout the courtyard—sometimes steady, sometimes sharp depending on what he was shaping. He made arrowheads for hunters, reinforced the guards for disciple spears, and repaired tools for the villagers who helped maintain the temple's outer fields.
He didn't need to work so tirelessly. The temple provided for them, and his duties were lighter than before. But Marek insisted on tending the forge every day. He claimed that fire and iron kept his mind clear, and though Lira teased him for working too hard, she never stopped him.
Everyone needed something to steady themselves through the passing years, Atem's body unlike most of children remained weak.
Lira often checked on him between patients, placing a hand on his tiny chest to feel his breathing. Marek sometimes paused by the cradle in the evenings, wiping soot from his arms before gently adjusting the blanket around the baby he believed was his son.
From Atem's perspective, they fussed too much, But he endured their care with quiet acceptance.
This was his life now—temporarily limited to blankets and bottles, but far from meaningless. He wasn't as helpless as before and he could make tiny sounds that Lira interpreted as signs of good health.
Atem often thought that if not for the dreams, he might have been able to forget the strangeness of his situation.
These dreams did not belong to a newborn, and of course not anyone ordinary, they were too vivid, too structured, too real.
On his seventh night in the new home, a faint shiver ran through his small body after waking from yet another overwhelming dream.
"I see… so this world is truly not simple…"
Time flowed like this for nine winters.
Snow layered the tiles each year, melted away with spring, and returned again as if marking time for the temple. The routines remained unchanged—medicine, forge, prayer bells, and the slow procession of villagers seeking treatment or newly sharpened tools.
Like how it should be, he found himself slipping into the slow flow of days with surprising ease.
By the time the ninth came and left, nothing in Lira and Marek's lives had changed. Lira still rose early each morning, tying her hair with the same practiced motion before opening her clinic doors.
Marek remained the same. His forge fire burned every day, and the echo of his hammer became as familiar to Atem as his own heartbeat.
For them, nine years passed almost without ripple.
But for Atem, those nine years changed everything.